(Reblogged from 12-30-13)
A new year requires a new calendar. Don’t you just love the crisp, uncurled pages–the empty spaces for each day, filled with nothing but optimistic possibilities?
Perhaps you’re starting the new year with a fresh journal. Again, the pristine pages are filled with nothing but hope and expectation.
We might also desire to start the new year with:
New eyes—to see the glory of God around us.
New ears—to hear his still, small voice.
New resolve—to follow God’s direction.
New courage—to speak his truth boldly.
New faith—to live with confident trust in our Heavenly Father.
These abilities cannot be bought at Barnes & Nobles, like a calendar or journal. They are procured through prayer and discipline.
A good place to begin? David’s prayer in Psalm 51: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me…Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:10, 12).
Allow me to personalize it a bit.
Create in me a pure heart, O God (just as you created a perfect universe from chaos).
And renew a steadfast spirit within me (that my greatest desire might be to please you).
Restore to me the joy of your salvation (just as we experience in the euphoria of Christmas Eve)!
Grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me (throughout 2016).
The typical new year’s resolution is made, broken, and forgotten. Rarely does someone make a once-a-year promise and keep it faithfully for the next 364 days.
Perhaps we’d be wise to see each new day as a fresh opportunity for beginning anew. To repent of yesterday’s failures and forget them. To strain toward what is ahead—with enthusiasm, expectation, and hope (Philippians 3:13).
And gradually those new abilities we aspire after will begin to flourish.
God says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:18-19a)!
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Thank you, Father, for your mercy to forgive the past, and your grace to provide for the future. Thank you that each morning is a fresh start, and each new day holds hidden opportunities. With great anticipation I turn the page!
(photo credit: www.news.health.com.)
From the Inside Out 